BEMBA RELIGION. The Bemba, also known as Awemba, inhabit the northeastern part of Zambia between lakes Tanganyika, Mweru, Malawi, and Bangweulu. According to oral traditions, three sons of the Luba king, Mukulumpe, who had fallen out with their father, led a migration of people from what is now the Shaba Province of southern Zaire to what became the Bemba territory. The royal clan of the Bemba traces its descent to these brothers and to their sister, Bwalya Chabala. By the mid-seventeenth century, the Bemba were established in their present territory. A paramount chief, or citimukulu (a title associated with Mukulumpe's sons), ruled the Bemba with the assistance of local chiefs, also of the royal clan, whom he appointed to govern the various districts under Bemba control.

The matrilineal clan structure of the Bemba can be traced to Bwalya Chabala's central role in the migrations from Shaba...